When I found out that I had to go to a desert island with only one
album to listen to I wanted to figure out why I listen to music, what
it does for me, and what album would satisfy my desert island needs.
I asked myself why I listen to music; things like "for fun," "because
I'm feeling sad," "it makes me happy," and "It helps me feel my
feelings" popped into my head. All of these are related to emotions
and moods, and they led me investigate the relationship moods and
emotions have with music. First of all I had to distinguish between
emotions and moods. Emotions are defined as intense mental
feeling(Ehrlich et al.281), and mood is defined as a temporary state
of mind or spirits, or the feeling or tone conveyed by an artistic
work(Ehrlich et al. 577). Since I come to music in either a mood or
with emotion, the music does not seem to be creating either of these.
But the music not only creates them, it is them. This is not easy
concept because it is hard to see how musical tones can be or make
emotion or mood.
Psychologist Carroll C. Pratt explained how music works with
emotions and moods when she said,
Music at its best is not symbolic at all.... tonal design stands for nothing beyond itself. It does not suggest mood and feeling. It is mood and feeling. The qualities of auditory perception are not iconic signs, nor do they by themselves represent or imitate or copy anything. The emotions and strivings of the will and desire are embodied in music not directly, but indirectly by way of tonal designs which closely resemble in formal outline the inner movements of the spirit.... But here at last it may indeed be true that music becomes symbolic, for it seems to stand for and express the joy and sorrow of all mankind, (quoted in Davies 134).
Stephen Davies supported her when he said, "Music cannot embody or contain emotions, but because of its dynamic character music possesses properties that are so similar to those of the emotions that it can be said to possess or present an emotional character" (Davies 134-135). So the relationship emotion and mood have with music is that music is so close in its make up to mood and emotion that it creates and is emotion and mood within its listener.
Logically then, the answer to my question as to what music does for me is that it creates an "atmosphere" composed of states of mind(moods), intense mental feelings(emotions), and memories of life experiences brought on by the music. This atmosphere releases the moods and emotions locked in side of me and my personality and makes me more keen in feeling their effects. Now, the reason I listen to music is pretty simple, I want the "atmosphere" that it creates and is for me. I love the intense moods it puts me in, I love the intense feelings it gives me, and I love how it takes me through my past memories.
But, since music is not all the same, one song bringing someone to tears and having no effect on another, it seems this atmosphere needs a definite shape for each individual. We all have different "inner movements of the spirit" and different life experiences that lead us to the need for different music to match up with them, in an individual way, and make emotion and mood for each of us. This means that we need our music to refer to our own individual experiences and "inner movements of spirit" and that goes along with the referentialist point of view. Leonard B. Meyer defines referentialists as those who feel "music... communicates meanings which in some way refer to the extramusical world of concepts, actions, emotional states and character" (Meyer 1). The "emotional states" and "character" he talks about are the "inner movements of the spirit," and the "world of concepts" is the life experience that a person has. The "world of concepts" is often contained in memories, and these memories are often associated with music. Therefore, when the associated music is played it brings them back along with their moods and emotions. Together with the individual's own natural or chemical make up, the "inner movements of the spirit" and the "world of concepts" make up an individual's personality. The "atmosphere" of the music one listens to must match up with this personality to have any real effect on the individual.
The things that I'm emotional about and the moods that I have are all derived from the type person I am naturally or chemically, and the life experiences that I have had. I am naturally an excitable and passionate person. I curse too much, and I am known to be quite loud. I often get to a volume a little higher than just talking when I'm involved in discussions. I love, I hate, and I'm not usually apathetic about anything.
On the side of life experience, I have had quite a variety. I have
had a mother who is Irish, Catholic, and feminist, and a
dark-skinned, Jewish, and somewhat chauvinistic father. I was born in
Washington D.C. and lived there until I was twelve, when I moved to
suburban upstate New York. I've had best friends that were inner city
black kids, and friends that were suburban racists. I've ducked
through back alleys playing hide and go seek in D.C., and I have gone
dirt biking in the woods of upstate New York. I've enjoyed a large
chaw of tobacco with my friends while watching football on TV. I've
also enjoyed watching plays on Broadway.
My personality is very diverse, emotional, and moody. This being the
case, I needed an album that brought with it an atmosphere that fit
my personality. Finding it was no small feat. I looked through all
the music I ever really listened to, but none of it seemed right. It
was all fitted to my personality in some way. All of it was emotional
and each type represented moods that I have had and have. The problem
was that, like me, my music selection is quite diverse. I mean, most
of my music differs a lot from piece to piece, and that made it
almost impossible to find an album that had an atmosphere so diverse
that it would match up with my entire personality.
I use to listen to Tori Amos all the time in high school when I
was going through sort of a depression phase. This was a very
emotional and moody time for me, and Amos's emotional music brings
with it a mood of passionate pain and sometimes happiness. Her music
uses a complex mix of seemingly every chord on the piano. She also
uses a little bit of bass, guitar, some back up singers, violin, and
in her newest album a lot of harpsichord. The crown jewel of her
music is her voice. It is high, soft and somewhat disturbing as she
delves into her world of pain. Her voice doesn't just get the lyrics
into the picture, it acts like an instrument. Its tonal design is in
line with some of my sorrow-filled "inner movements of spirit." Her
lyrics are also quite emotional and deep. In the song "Crucify" the
lyrics go, "why do I crucify myself, every day I crucify myself." I
felt this and still do. I remember "crucifying" myself over whether
or not I was a good person. I love her music because it touches some
of my deepest "inner movements of spirit" and emotions. With out her
I may never have looked very far into the pain that I often
repressed. But her music is just too limited.
I have also listened to Rage Against the Machine quite frequently.
Rage, like Amos, is filled with emotion and mood. Their music is
composed of heavy mental guitar and drum beat with a lot more bass
than in heavy metal. It is like a funky heavy metal. The lead singer,
Zack Delarocha, raps and screams to the music, and the combination
creates an atmosphere that is very much in tune with emotions and
moods of anger and rage. Their lyrics are also very angry. In one of
their songs they say, "fuck you I won't do what you tell me"
repeatedly, and in another they say "anger is a gift." Most of their
songs are about oppression, anger, and freedom. The energy that the
group has towards these issues gives of the impression that they
really feel what they sing about and that helps their music to be
felt. But their music was also too limited.
Busta Rhymes is another artist whose music creates a strongly felt atmosphere. Busta's music is rap. He uses a lot of bass accompanied by some drums and a variety of sound effects that together make a sexually rhythmic sound. His music and beats similar to other rap, but his rapping helps distinguishes him from the rest. He has a bass voice that he uses to rap with a lot of energy. He kind of screams, and you can hear excitement in his voice. This excitement along with the sexual tone of the music creates these emotions and moods in the listener. His lyrics are based on violence and sex, and they add to the excitement and sex of the music a bit of violence. All of the emotions and moods that his music brings on are quite powerful, but also quite limited in their range.
The Dave Matthews band creates yet another atmosphere for me. Dave's music consists of fiddling, complex guitar playing, saxophone, and horns. Its sound is a combination of folk music and jazz. Dave's voice is unique; it is high and kind of sounds like a cookie monster who could sing in tune. As a whole his music gives emotions and moods of happiness, freedom, and lack of responsibility. In his song "Tripping Hillbillies" the lyrics go "eat, drink, and be merry" illustrating the inner movements of spirit of happiness, freedom, and lack of responsibility that his music creates. I personally have memories of life experience associated with this music that also support the inner movements I just mentioned. I first started to listen to Dave during the summer between my sophomore and junior year. This was one the most happy, free, and fun times of my life. I spent much of the summer at my dad's lake house looking at the water, lying around, and chasing after teenage girls. I was listening to Dave during this time, so his music brings back some of those memories and emotions. Dave is yet another great and limited atmosphere.
I could go into much more of my favorite music, but that would be repetitive and boring, having the effect of Mark's essay in the book Stranded where she goes through every song she seemed ever to like to show the range of her album (Mark 19-26). But, I am like Mark in that I am taking one album that encompasses all of my favorite and most powerful music.
That album is Blood Sugar Sex Magic by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The group, Anthony Kiedis (vocals), Flea (bass), Hillel Slovak (Guitar), and Jack Irons (drums), originally got together in 1978 as Los Faces (Rees and Crampton 708) They played their first show in 1983 at the Kit Kat Strip Club (Rees and Crampton 708). I was quite surprised when I picked them as the group that made my album, because they have a lot of the character that I did not expect my choice to have. Washington Post reporter Joe Brown described them as, "L.A. bad boys, whose tattooed torsos and skatepunk attitude would make them a side show attraction"(Brown ww13). They have been known to only wear socks over their genitalia while performing (Rees and Crampton 708). On June 25, 1988 Slovak died of a heroin overdose in Los Angeles, and in July Irons quit the band because he was disturbed by Slovak's death(Rees and Crampton 708). Kiedis also had an heroin addiction that prompted him to go to rehab(Evans et al. 822). In 1989 he was convicted of "indecent exposure and sexual battery in an incident following a Virginia concert"(Evans et al. 822). The drugs, the tattoos, the sexual battery, and the socks range from humorous to out of control and crazy, and they are not at all like the actions I take in life. I'm relatively preppy, I played three sports in high school, and I am playing one while in college. So I'm not into tattoos or heroin. I also think indecent exposure and sexual battery are bad things to be doing. So, I'm really nothing like these guys, and it's surprising that they made the music that touches me so deeply. Every time I told a friend that I was bringing the Peppers, I got a weird look.
The Pepper's album Blood Sugar Sex Magic is composed of a large variety of music. This variety is a result of the evolution they went through from album to album. They used a variety of producers like Andy Gill on The Red Hot Chili Peppers, George Clinton on Freaky Styley, Michael Beinhorn on The Uplift Mofo Party Plan and Mother's Milk, and finally Rick Ruban on Blood Sugar Sex Magic to evolve (Rees 708). Each producer adding his own bit of talent and expertise to further the growth of range in the Peppers' music. Clinton and his band the Parliament/Funkadelic were pioneers in funk, and Clinton used his expertise to combine some of James Brown's horn players with the Peppers on freak Styley, advancing the Peppers' range of sound(Evans et al. 822) Gill and Beinhorn are not as notable as Clinton, but Beinhorn did produce the Peppers' first big hit Mother's Milk. Finally in getting Ruban to do Blood Sugar Sex Magic the Peppers completed their journey to creating an album with a wide reaching scope. Ruban was perfect because he had produced many different types of artists such as "precedent-setting rap-metal crossovers" Beasty Boys(Jenkens G7), the Cult, rapper L.L. Cool J.(Goldstein cal66), the heavy metal band Slayer, and the rapper Ghetto Boys(Hochman cal58). He took his wide range of expertise to the table with the Peppers and it worked.
With Ruban the Peppers became more than just a punk-funk band;
they became a rap, funk, soft song, and punk band. L.A. Times
reporter Steve Hochman comments on the change by saying, "'Breaking
the Girl' and a couple of other similarly toned tunes add new
dimensions to the strutting funk and breast beating chants the band
is known for.... Kiedis, who has grown enough both as a
multidimensional front man (he raps, growls and now croons with the
best of them) and a lyricist that he can chastenedly sing, 'shoulda
been, coulda been, woulda been dead/ If I didn't get the message
going to my head'-and still live up to the songs taunting title,
'Suck My Kiss'"(Hochman cal58). This is a good short summary of the
album because it gets at the band's growth, and it touches on the
variety of the album.
"Breaking the Girl" and "I Could Have Lied" have a similar musical
tone of soft and slow songs. They include acoustic guitar,
unpronounced bass, a mild drum beat, and Kiedis singing in a soft and
sorrow-filled voice. The tonal designs of these songs bring about,
are, and are in line with the inner movements of spirit of emotions
and moods of sorrow. On the lyrical side of these songs "I Could Have
Lied" is about falling out of love with someone and telling that
person the truth about it. Its lyrics go, "could have lied I'm such a
fool/.... showed her and I told her how/ she struck me but I'm fucked
up now," and "Breaking the Girl" is about breaking a girl's heart.
These lyrics add sorrow to the atmosphere of the songs. Music and
lyrics together, these songs create an atmosphere that is much the
same as the atmosphere I get with Tori Amos, and that means through
the Peppers Tori is coming to the desert island.
"Under the Bridge" is composed of soft sounding electric guitar, bass, and Kiedis's voice, along with a slow drum beat. Its tonal design is in line with emotions and moods of happiness, being relaxed, and freedom. Its lyrics are much more depressing than the music,( they are about being lonely), but they get drowned out by the music's effect. The atmosphere of this song is just like that of Dave Matthews's music. So Dave is coming.
"Suck my Kiss" and "Sir Psycho Sexy," two very similar songs, have a lot of bass, Kiedis rapping and singing, and a medium speed heavy drum beat. This combination makes for a funk sound. It is very rhythmic, and like Busta Rhymes' music it is sexual. The lyrics of these songs are very sexually aggressive. In "Suck My Kiss" the line, "give to me sweet sacred bliss/ your mouth was made to suck my kiss." "Sir Psycho Sexy" is lyrically totally sexual; it is basically about men's dirty dreams. One part of the song is about getting forced into sex by a female cop. The over all atmosphere of this song is that of Busta Rhymes' music. They both have an atmosphere that consists of sexual, grooving, and violent emotions and moods. They make you want to dance, fight, and use that good looking girl for a night, or even a couple of hours, of pleasure.
Much, if not all, of my music is found in Blood Sugar Sex Magic, and in turn I get to all of the atmospheres I search for in my music. The album lines up with the "inner movements of spirit," and life experiences that make up my personality. The album is moody, like me, with all of its changes in tonal and lyrical mood, and it reminds me of many of my life experiences. As Mark's Van Morrison album gave her all of her music's atmospheres, it gives me mine, and that will make it possible for me to get along better on my island. I will now have a gateway back into all of my emotions, moods, memories, and experiences that will be lost going to my island. I will be able to go through my gateway and delve into my past and present again and again. But, I will have no expectations of what lies on the other side of the gateway. Whether it is different or the same every time, I will enjoy it. This is because I will enter into my gateway as a sovereign ruler of my experience with no expectations to hinder me. I will see what I see for what it is, not for what it is not. That will make me the "complex sightseer," mentioned in Percy's essay, of my own self, and I will get there by "standing on the shoulders" of my CD (Percy 48-49).
Brown, Joe. "Chili Peppers Heating Up." The Washington Post 14 Aug. 1992, ww13.
Davies, Stephen. Musical Meaning and Expression. Ithica and London: Cornell University, 1994.
Ehrlich, Eugene et al. Oxford American Dictionary. New York: Avon Books,1986.
Evans, Paul, et al. The New Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll. 2nd ed. New York: Rolling Stone, 1994.
Goldstein, Patrick. "New Album Haunts the Chili Peppers." The L.A. Times 2 June. 1991, cal66.
Hochman, Steve. "Chili Peppers Get Some Humility." The L.A. Times 15 Sept. 1991, cal58.
Jenkens, Mark. "California's Funk-Metalists, Putting On Airs." The Washington Post 27 Oct. 1991, G7.
Mark, M. "It's Too Late To Stop Now," Stranded: Rock and Roll For A Desert Island. Ed. Greil Marcus. 2nd ed. New York: Da Capo Press, 1996.
Meyer, Leonard B. Emotion and Meaning in Music. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1956.
Percy, Walker. "The Loss Of the Creature." The Message in the Bottle. New York: Farrar, strause, and Giroux, 1975: 46-63.
Rees, Dafydd, and Luke Crampton. Encyclopedia of Rock Stars. New York: D.K., 1996.